The United States has reportedly been operating a covert offshore oil-transfer network near the Strait of Hormuz, employing tactics long associated with Iran to maintain the flow of Gulf crude despite Tehran's blockade of the strategic waterway.
The operation, which began in early May, involves transferring oil between vessels off the coasts of Oman and the United Arab Emirates before loading it onto larger tankers for export, according to Reuters, which cited shipping data, satellite imagery, and over a dozen sources familiar with the arrangements.
The report estimates that approximately 90 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products may have moved through the offshore network since early May, though this remains well below the roughly 20 million barrels that passed through the strait daily before the conflict.
At least 92 ships have participated in this operation, which relies on vessels traveling with transponders switched off and lights dimmed—methods commonly used by Iran's so-called "dark fleet" to evade sanctions and conceal cargo movements.
The transfer network emerged after Iran effectively shut access through the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict, disrupting one of the world's most critical energy chokepoints. The waterway typically handles around a fifth of global oil consumption.
Sources told Reuters that the US military has coordinated surveillance, compliance screening, and transit monitoring for participating vessels, though there was no indication that American personnel were directly involved in the transfers themselves.
The operation has enabled Gulf producers to continue exporting crude despite heightened security risks, but analysts warned the system remains vulnerable. "You just don't know when Iran might just decide to start using drones or even gunboats in order to prevent even those ships from transiting the strait," said Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who reviewed Reuters' findings.
The use of tactics previously associated with sanctioned states also drew attention from foreign policy observers. "As the old rules weaken, it's ironic that the United States is now taking a page out of the playbook of China, Russia, North Korea, and even Iran, whose so-called 'dark fleets' pioneered these techniques precisely to evade U.S. and UN sanctions," wrote Michael Froman, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, in a note.
